Yāzuò wén lèi 押座文類
A Collection of “Yā-zuò” Texts anonymous (Dunhuang manuscript)
About the work
A single-juan anonymous Dunhuang Buddhist text-collection, preserved at T85 no. 2845. The text gathers yāzuò wén 押座文 — verse-prologues used in the biànwén 變文 (transformation-text) and sùjiǎng 俗講 (popular-lecture) traditions of late-Táng / Five-Dynasties Buddhism — opening each performance-event by “settling the seat” (yā zuò 押座) of the audience, focusing attention on the sutra-narrative to follow.
Prefaces
The text has no auto-preface or byline. It opens immediately with the first yāzuò wén, headed Wéimó jīng yāzuò wén 維摩經押座文 (“Yāzuò wén for the Vimalakīrtisūtra”):
頂禮上方香積世 妙喜如來化相身 是有妻兒眷屬徒 心淨常修於梵行 智力神通難可測 手搖日月動須彌
(Bowing-down to the Sukhāvatī-fragrance world / The transformation-form body of the Sumanas Tathāgata / He has wife and children, family followers / Yet his heart-pure constantly cultivates the brahma-conduct / His wisdom-power and supernatural penetration are hard to measure / His hand shakes the sun and moon and moves Sumeru.)
Subsequent yā-zuò wén in the collection treat other major sutras — likely the Lotus Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka, the Mahāparinirvāṇa, and others — each providing a verse-prologue suitable for opening a performance-lecture on that sutra.
Abstract
The work is one of the principal Dunhuang witnesses to the biànwén / sùjiǎng popular-Buddhist performance tradition — a late-Táng / Five-Dynasties / early-Sòng tradition in which monastic preachers performed elaborate sutra-narrative stagings for mixed lay-and-monastic audiences, combining canonical-prose narrative with verse-interpolation, pictorial illustration, and possibly musical accompaniment. The yāzuò wén are the verse-prologues that “settled” the audience and oriented them toward the upcoming performance.
notBefore = 700, notAfter = 1000. Catalog dynasty 唐.
The work is closely paralleled by other Dunhuang biànwén manuscripts and the Dūnhuáng biànwén jí 敦煌變文集 (Wáng Chóngmín 王重民 et al., 1957; BāShǔ Shūshè reprint), which gathers the principal Dunhuang transformation-texts in critical edition. The yāzuò wén genre is one of the principal literary-historical witnesses to early Chinese vernacular literature, linking Tang-period Buddhist popular preaching to the later SòngYuán pínghuà 平話 oral-narrative and ultimately to the vernacular novel tradition.
Translations and research
- Wáng Chóng-mín 王重民 et al. (eds.), Dūn-huáng biàn-wén jí 敦煌變文集 (1957; reprinted Bā-Shǔ Shū-shè, 1990s) — the standard critical edition of Dunhuang biàn-wén including yā-zuò wén.
- Victor H. Mair, T’ang Transformation Texts (Harvard, 1989) — comprehensive English-language treatment.
- Victor H. Mair, Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis (Hawai’i, 1988).
- Eugene N. Anderson, Stephen F. Teiser, and others on Dunhuang popular-Buddhist literature.
Other points of interest
The yāzuò wén genre is one of the principal bridging genres between elite Buddhist canonical literature and vernacular Chinese narrative literature. The performative-prologue function — standing apart from the canonical-prose body of a sutra-lecture, in verse form designed for memorability and oral delivery — has direct counterparts in the prologue-conventions of later Chinese vernacular performance traditions (shuōshū 說書 storytelling, pínghuà 平話 narrative-prose, etc.). The text is therefore important not only for Buddhist studies but for the historical study of Chinese performance literature.